Has it ever happened to you to have a perfectly optimized site with lots of links and content and the right keyword density and still do not rank high in search engines? Probably every SEO has experienced this. The reasons for such kind of failure can be really diverse? While there is not much you can do about the sandbox effect but wait, in most other cases it is up to you to counteract the negative effects you are suffering from. You just need to figure out what is stopping you from achieving the deserved rankings. Careful analysis of your site and the sites that link to you can give you ideas where to look for for the source of trouble and deal with it.

Avoid bad neighbors by linking very wisely

It is a known fact that one of the most important items for high rankings, especially with Google, are links. The Web is woven out of links and inbound and outbound links are most natural.

Why there are sites having bad neighbors around?

We have already mentioned in this article some of the practices that are a reason for search engines to ban particular sites. But they are not only limited to being a spam domain. Companies get blacklisted generally, because they try to boost their ranking by using illegal techniques such as keyword stuffing, duplicate content (or lack of any original content), hidden text and links, doorway pages, deceptive titles, machine-generated pages, copyright violators, etc. Search engines also tend to dislike meaningless link directories that conceive the impression that they are topically arranged, so if you have a fat links section on your site, double-check what you link to in the internet.

Who's Hot? Who's Not?

Probably the question that is popping is: “But since the Web is so vast and so constantly changing, how can I know who is good and who is bad?” Well, you don't have to know each of the sites on the black list, even if it were possible. The black list itself is changing all the time but it looks like there will always be companies and individuals who are eager to earn some cash by spamming, disseminating viruses and porn or simply performing fraudulent SEO activities.